


Giving Up (And Moving On)

by KLStarre



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 21:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4453067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're falling apart, and there is no solution. Not really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giving Up (And Moving On)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this long before the third anniversary episode, so it's more of a "what-if" than an actual AU.

Cecil missed Carlos. Desperately. He wasn’t stupid, he knew that Carlos missed him too, that he was doing all he could to get back home. But at night, when he lay alone in the bed that he had finally gotten used to them sharing, the doubts came. The ones that told him that Carlos actually preferred the desert otherworld, that he liked Doug better, that he was never coming back.

            And no matter how hard he tried to fight them off, eventually he would give in, sobbing into a pillow that had long ago lost Carlos’s scent. During the day, surrounded with friends who came up with increasingly unlikely excuses to visit him, he could forget, for a time, that Carlos didn’t seem to be nearly as desperate as he was. Could put off the nagging question-what if Carlos wasn’t really looking for the doors, was just pacifying Cecil so that he would leave him alone?

            It was times like tonight, when that question was the strongest, that he resorted to the alcohol. He told himself he’d only have one shot as he got out of bed to walk to the cabinet where he kept it. But after he had the one, well, what was the harm in another? And by the time he had finished that one, he no longer remembered why he should only have drunk one. After that, it was only a matter of time until he lost count.

            Eventually his hand was shaking too much, his vision too blurry, to hold the glass and he set it down on the floor with exaggerated care, collapsing next to it. His sobs wracked his entire body until eventually the stupor took him and he slept.

∞

            Carlos wasn’t good with emotions. Oh, he _felt_ them, sure, but the only one he was really good with expressing was his excitement for science. He tried really hard for Cecil, and he thought he had been getting better-he never would have dreamed of being able to actually say the words “I love you” out loud, no matter how much he felt them, before they had started dating.

            But it was so hard to keep that up when he knew that there was no way back.

            His first few days in the otherworld desert had been spent with Doug and Alecia and the other masked warriors, looking for a door. He had barely slept for about a week, eating only when he absolutely had to. Eventually, though, he had been forced to come to the conclusion that there was no way to get back to Cecil and the terrifying little town that had become his home.

            He knew that knowledge would break Cecil. So he tried to hide it, pretend that he was still looking, and he disguised the pain in his voice by rambling on and on about scientific opportunities. Lately, however, he had started to hear the suspicion in Cecil’s voice when they talked. And no matter how much Carlos tried to assure him that he was looking, that he wanted nothing more than to get back to Night Vale, that doubt seemed to linger.

            Carlos wasn’t stupid either. When they FaceTimed, he could see the effects the alcohol had had on Cecil, and he was powerless to stop it.

            Which was why he was currently sitting outside the cave that the masked warriors shared with him, staring at his phone as tears blurred his vision. He needed to tell Cecil. He needed to tell him so that Cecil could move on. With a trembling hand, he hit the call button.

∞

            Cecil’s phone rang from across the room, piercing his daze enough for him to stumble to his feet and check the caller ID. When he saw who it was, he straightened up, trying to push the slur out of his voice, and picked up. “Carlosh?”

∞

            Carlos sighed. Well, there was no backing out now. “Cecil?” he said. “I have something to tell you…”

∞

            As he listened, his eyes widened, his body slumping against their-no, he corrected himself, _his_ \- bed. “No,” he whispered. “You’re lying. You’re a shientist, Carlos! You can find a way back!”

∞

            “I’ve tried, Cecil! I’ve tried so hard. So hard…” and that was when the tears finally came, flowing down his cheeks, and with a detached part of him, he noticed how odd crying was. “Don’t you think I’ve done all I can?”

∞

            “I don’t…I don’t know. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Come home to me, Carlos. Please. I can’t do this anymore.” He couldn’t process the idea that he would never again talk to Carlos face to face, never again curl up with him inside a shared lab coat.

∞

            Carlos drew the sleeve of his lab coat across his face, wiping away the tears, as he stood, facing the sunrise. “I’ll try,” he said, because, really, even if it was letting Cecil believe a lie, what harm could it do?


End file.
